Jackie’s Everest Trek Challenge: Great North Run

Still feeling elated following my PB of 2.00.40 at the Great North Run yesterday! It was a great improvement on last year's PB of 2.07.35. Those elite athletes had better watch out - I was an hour behind them last year and now I'm only 53 minutes behind!!

I put most of my improvement down to CrossFit. I think it has really strengthened me both physically and mentally. It's made a big difference to my running and has been fantastic preparation for my Everest Base Camp challenge. I'm so grateful to Pete and Andy at CrossFit HG3 - http://crossfithg3.com - for their patient coaching and encouragement.

Had a lovely bath last night and a good night's sleep and overall I don't feel too bad this morning. My joints feel a bit creaky but my muscles aren't too achey even though I've yet to do some proper stretching. I've got a streaming cold though.

I've been fighting this cold for probably over a week with various homeopathic and ayurvedic remedies and they worked sufficiently to get me through the Great North Run. In the first half of the race it was sunny and warm, but we all got absolutely soaked in the second half and after I finished I got quite cold and this is the result.

For the first few miles of the race I felt strong and my pace was too fast really. I was aiming to keep steady at about 9.10 minutes per mile but I was doing quite a bit under 9.00. In the middle part of the race I was still ahead of schedule but by 10 miles I was just about at the time I'd planned for a sub 2 hour run. The course is generallly quite hilly and although the steepest hills are nearer the beginning there's a steady climb from mile 10 to just before you reach mile 12 and this was when I started to slow up. Then right at the end there was quite a jam and it was hard to get round people, although I don't think this cost me more than about 10 seconds really.

Before the race


The race has just started and I'm on the left

At the end I was quite wobbly and emotional and cold and it seemed to take forever to get to the Traidcraft tent in the Charity Village where I was meeting my husband Glyn. I ran for Traidcraft this year which is a charity I've supported for a while now. It was lovely to see Glyn waiting for me there. He said he'd managed to catch a glimpse of the back of me at the end and had cheered me on but I'd looked really focussed and hadn't noticed. Charlotte and the team at the Traidcraft tent were just brilliant, providing lots of praise and TLC in the form of warm tea, loads of yummy snacks and a wonderful massage!